Message in a Bottle Answered Decades Later

If your message in a bottle is answered at all, you are extremely lucky. But to have your message in a bottle answered after 28 years? That is just crazy good luck!

John and Diane Worrell. Photo: John Worrell.

John and Diane Worrell have picked up countless plastic bottles from their lakeside home in Ontario over the years–but they knew they had found something special when one turned up with paper inside it.

According to the Detroit Free Press, that paper turned out to be a message written by a 12 year old boy. When? They couldn’t tell–it wasn’t dated. And when they tried to call the phone number on the message, it was disconnected.

William’s message in a bottle. Photo: John Worrell.

Message in a Bottle Answered After Search for Sender

That’s when they decided to ask Allie Gross at the Detroit Free Press for help. Bless her heart, she is one of the rare journalists who seem to understand the deep impact that messages in bottles can have on lives–an impact unique to messages in bottles.

Well, Allie found William Shuford, the author of the note. Hurray!

John and Diane Worrell had been excited about brightening the day of a kid when they told him of their find. William was 12 when he sent his note with his father, and John and Diane figured he was maybe 14 or 15 today. In fact, William is now 40, making his message in a bottle 28 years old. He sent it most likely in 1989.

William Shuford. Photo: William Shuford.

William was extremely surprised to have his message in a bottle answered, according to Detroit Free Press. It seemed to bring him right back to a different world and a different time–a time when he was growing up in Detroit, living with his two sisters and his single father, learning from him, a time when, as he told the CBC, “My dad was everyone’s dad in the neighbourhood because there weren’t enough dads to go around.”

The message in a bottle, it turned out, was born of a tradition he had with his father. Each year, on New Year’s Eve, they would visit the water at Belle Isle. According to the CBC, “When Shuford went off to college, he would get a call from his dad every New Year’s Eve. Dad was heading down to the water, where he would stare out and say a few prayers as another year began.”

Of course William grew up and carried on with his life. Today, he works as a head-hunter and AirBnB host in the San Francisco Bay area. Sadly his father passed away in 2014. Although he never got to hear of the note’s discovery, he left quite a legacy. My favorite detail from the CBC story is that William remembers seeing his dad braiding his daughters’ hair in the morning. I don’t know a lot, but I know this: as silly as it sounds, the world would be a better place if more daddies were willing and able to braid their daughters’ hair. It seems like an insignificant detail–just a daily chore. But it reveals a sweetness of heart, a simple goodness that this world could use a lot more of, don’t you think?

There are even workshops for dads happening nowadays based on exactly this idea, like this one and this one. Isn’t this the loveliest thing that ever happened? And William’s dad was way ahead of his time on this point. Well done, I say!

William and his dad looking sharp together! Photo: William Shuford.

A Message in a Bottle Connection

Every message in a bottle answered is an opportunity, a window suddenly opened between lives.

William has now spoken with John and Diane, and, in the magic way of message in a bottles, a new friendship has been formed–a friendship that never would have been possible in any other way. If you ask me, that makes the world a measurably better place.

*There was another message in a bottle answered in the same region after 97 years. Click here for that story.

Drawing in a Bottle – A Mysterious Message

Gemma Dunstan and her boyfriend recently found a mysterious message in a bottle and are looking for help locating the sender. It is not so much a message in a bottle as a drawing in a bottle…

Photo: Gemma Dunstan.

After years of finding and researching messages in bottles, I have come to realize that there are as many motives for sending them as people on earth. Yet, I still wonder: What is the motive behind sending something like a drawing in a bottle with no identifying information? I count myself lucky that when I found art in a bottle, John Piper included his contact info (click here for that story). Continue reading →

A Heartbreaking Loss in Scotland

This might be the most heartbreaking and inspiring message in a bottle I have ever heard of. It involves the deeply painful loss of not one, but two children. The chances of this particular connection seem astronomically small to me, and yet–here we are. No one should have to go through what these two mothers experienced. Even so, these incredibly strong and resilient women are so inspiring, I feel compelled to share their story. Their story also shows just how powerful a simple message in a bottle can be.

The story begins with a happy little boy, Lucas, and his mother, Sascha, living in Glasgow, Scotland in November 2016, according to the Daily Mail. As you can see, Lucas was bright, healthy, and happy.

Tegan’s Message in a Bottle

Karien Trengrove and her partner Darren Rodgers were on holiday, walking Shelly Beach, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. They were the only ones on the beach–there was no one around as far as the eye could see–and, under a bit of fog, the flat brown shore stretched off into the distance before and behind them.

The Search for Amelia Earhart

This is the story of how the search for Amelia Earhart led one man to discover a decades-old message in a bottle, and how, inspired by the find, his colleague sent a message of his own, and received a response. Did you catch all that? There will be a quiz 🙂

Here’s the story straight from the TIGHAR’s mouth, so to speak. Kenton Spading, Amelia Earhart researcher, wrote me to explain how this all happened:

“I have been researching the mystery surrounding the July 1937 disappearance of Amelia Earhart since 1992 through my membership in The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR). TIGHAR approaches the Earhart/Noonan mystery through the application of the scientific method. In that light TIGHAR’s Nikumaroro (Niku) Hypothesis proposes that Earhart/Noonan landed on Gardner Island (now Niku).

Nikumaroro is a tiny island waaaay out in the Pacific Ocean where TIGHAR believes Amelia Earhart may have spent her final days.

Mysterious Message Washes Ashore in Australia

Another fascinating and mysterious message in a bottle has been discovered on Australia’s west coast! The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reports that Michael Thompson discovered a 35 year old message in a bottle on a remote beach in northwest Australia around Mundabullangana Station.